!Today Category?

!Today Category?

04-08-2003, 06:07 AM

This is a trick I adopted some time ago and have found it to be helpful. I thought I'd share it and see if anyone else does likewise or can suggest further refinements.

In addition to my context lists (@Home, @Computer, @Errands, etc.) I have a list called !Today. The use of the "!" rather than the "@" means that that category will be at the top of my task list when viewed either in the Task View or in the Taskpad view.

Probably a better name for this category would be "Do Today if at all Possible" but that's too long a title! Things that have to be done on a given day go on the hard landscape of my calendar as a "Timeless" appointment. I use the !Today list for those things it would be nice to get done as well if I can.

Each morning I run through my lists and decide what discretionary tasks I want to try to tackle that day and add them to the !Today list. If it is a busy day with many client appointments, I will have only a few things on that list. If the day is more open I will add more. At the end of the day everything on this list is returned to its context list (easy to do in Outlook with a single right click on the list heading).

The goal of having this list is so that I don't have to rethink my way through my other lists as the day unfolds. I am primarily client based in my work (a therapist) and when a window opens for a discretionary task I can quickly look at the !Today list and punch a couple of items out.

Great Idea! I have been using the "Due Date/Reminder" section of tasks to set up what I hoped to accomplish &amp; then have my Outlook Today display only "Today's Tasks". For the non-vital things reminders were a terrible pain - got advice &amp; tips from another posting set on this site for turning them off. I'll have to give your idea a try.

Comment

Thanks for the post and suggestion. I have contemplated this approach in the past. What I've done at times was create an untimed, daily repeating event for the week on my Palm calendar app called "Plan for week", which contains those things from my various work-context lists (i.e. @office, @phone, @computer, etc.) that would give me the biggest return if they were completed.

Recently, I've kept the items within their respective lists, but given them a priority 1, and defaulted all others to a priority 3 or 5 (so that they're always below the 1's).

I agree that this avoids the requirements of having to re-think my way through my lists everytime I open them.